An aircraft requires special cargo handling equipment for loading and unloading cargo platforms. In military airlift applications and similar uses of large cargo aircrafts, where little or no ground-based cargo loading equipment is available, there has been a need for loading and unloading cargo platform related systems without the use of a conventional K-loader or an overhead crane.
Today, cargo platforms are not directly loaded from a load handling system (LHS) vehicle to an aircraft because there is insufficient overhead clearance to permit the operation of the LHS vehicle loading arm. This makes direct loading impossible. A cargo platform must be demounted from the LHS vehicle at some distance from the aircraft. Afterwards, the cargo platform is placed on a K-loader by an overhead crane for loading onto an aircraft. This, however, requires a large amount of material handling equipment to be available at an onload and offload site. Additionally, this requires multiple aircraft loads of material handling equipment (e.g. forklift equipment, K-loader, and/or an overhead crane) to be flown to the onload/offload site and set up prior to the arrival of the aircraft transporting the cargo platforms.
Therefore, a need exists for a means to load and unload cargo platforms to and from an aircraft without the need for large material handling equipment.